


It Was Him

by ashesandelms



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 03:51:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7027363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesandelms/pseuds/ashesandelms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Highlights of Katniss and Peeta's relationship, as they grow together, apart, and back together again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. District 12

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first try at a fanfic. I've enjoyed so many of the wonderful Everlark authors and stories, I finally wanted to contribute one. 
> 
> I obviously do not own the Hunger Games. I just love the characters, especially Peeta. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

**Age Five**

His father points her out, trying to distract him from his nervousness on his first day of school. Her hair is in two long braids and she wears a red plaid dress. When she stands up to sing in music class, he has never heard anything more lovely. Peeta loves her, as only a five year old can - honestly, completely, unashamedly. 

He runs back home to the bakery to tell his father about the girl with the silver eyes and sweet, clear voice. His mother overhears the name Katniss Everdeen, whipping into into their conversation and crushing the little boy's heart when she orders him to stay clear of her. They're better than people from the Seam.

Peeta doesn't know what that means. He doesn't argue, because he doesn't want a beating. But he also doesn't care what his mother says. He still loves the girl with the beautiful voice and dark braids.

**Age Nine**

He watches her from across the school yard, laughing and playing with her little sister. He wishes he had that kind of closeness with his brothers. He strains his ears for any sound of her singing, which she often does with her sister. They braid crowns from wildflowers and giggle, oblivious to Peeta and any of their other schoolmates. 

Peeta sighs. They don't need his company. But maybe he'll have the courage to talk to her tomorrow. 

**Age Eleven**

He sees her turn in on herself after the dark day of the mine collapse. After her father dies. He watches her split what little lunch she has with her sister, and then give her sister even more of her share. Katinss is too thin. Peeta doesn't know what to do. Why doesn't anyone help her? 

He is afraid to take food from the bakery for her - his mother keeps too tight an inventory, and he is certain this proud, strong girl wouldn't accept a handout from him. But maybe...Prim. 

The next morning Peeta starts his work at the bakery half an hour early, getting up at four a.m. Enough time to make his lunch without his mother watching. Enough time to swipe one leftover stale roll and some extra cheese for his lunch. Enough time to sneak it to Prim's cubby at school, in a crinkly brown bag. 

Peeta tries not to watch too closely during lunch. Did Prim find the small bit of extra food? Will she be unwilling to accept it, like Katniss would be? 

He smiles as Prim halves the roll and cheese, giving it to her sister. He swears Katniss glances over to him, her eyes sad but with a spark of something brighter - and he quickly acts as if his friend Geoff has told the best joke ever. She had a small smile on her face when he flitted his eyes away. He will find a way to get Prim, and through her Katniss, food every day. It feels good to be helpful, to be needed in a small way.

It takes a week before his mother finds out he has been taking extra food. He swears he's just hungry. He has to stay home from school the next day, and then the next, because of his bruises and injuries. They tell the school he has the flu. He worries what Katniss and Prim will do now. 

Two weeks later, he sees her sitting underneath their apple tree at night. She is frighteningly skinny. He heard the words his mother yelled at her before he realized it was Katniss, whose clear voice never sings anymore and who wears her hair in one dark braid instead of two.

He doesn't hesitate to burn the bread - good, hearty bread with raisins and nuts - knowing his mother will punish him harshly. This bread sells for more of a profit than the others. He doesn't care. 

Katniss lifts her head at the sounds of new shouting, knowing she doesn't have the strength to go home. Maybe they will call the Peacekeepers to remove her. She knows where that ends - with her and Prim living at the community home and her mother sent away. But she doesn't have the energy to move. Maybe she'll die under this apple tree. She whispers an apology to Prim. 

Katniss sees him leave the bakery with two loaves of bread, tearing off burnt pieces for the pigs. He glances towards her, his eyes blue and piercing in the darkness. In the dim light she can see where his mother struck him. Hateful woman. He tosses her the bread and walks back into the bakery as if nothing happened. 

Katniss stands up, unbelieving at this turn of luck. Two whole loaves of bread. She tucks them carefully into her coat and rushes home, her earlier despondence forgotten. Prim's eyes light up when she sees the food. Even her mother joins them for a slice at the table. 

Later that night, Katniss thinks of the boy with the bread. It was him. She had a suspicion he'd been leaving food for Prim each day and had a feeling she knew why it stopped. She thinks about his bright blue eyes and wonders how she will face him at school. Will he expect gratitude? Why did he give them food? 

The next day in the school yard, he searches for her. She is still too thin, and her clothes fit too loosely. Two loaves of bread can't change that. But he thinks she stands straighter, prouder. She is still so beautiful. 

She finds him staring at her from across the school yard, one of his bright blue eyes swollen shut from his mother's strike last night. He took a beating, for her. For her family. Why? She stares at him, turning away when he looks to her. She sees a dandelion in the grass.

When she turns back, he is talking with his friends. 

How do you thank someone for saving your life? 

**Age Fourteen**

He knows she is no longer starving. She and Prim laugh and smile again, though not as much as before their father passed. But now they spend breaks in the schoolyard with the Hawthorne kids. They look like they could all be related - except Prim, of course. But Katniss and the others all share the same olive skin and dark hair. 

God, he hopes Gale is her cousin. 

She doesn't need him, Peeta is certain of this. She is strong and irrepressible, able to care for her entire family. He is the third son whose own family isn't sure what his purpose is. After he told his father about the Everdeen's desperation, the kind baker made sure to always give Katniss a little extra for the squirrels she brought to trade. 

He doesn't know how to get close to her. He's done all he can from afar.

**Age Sixteen**

It was him. Why did it have to be him? Katniss knew she didn't have a chance of surviving the Hunger Games. But she had no choice, to keep her sister safe. Why did the other tribute have to be the boy with the bread? She never told anyone else what he did, not even Prim. Certainly not Gale, who would have told her that Peeta probably just wanted to get her to the slag heap. She won't believe that about the boy with the bread. She doesn't know much about him, but she knows he is kind. And that he has his pick of beautiful Merchant girls. _Could have had his pick_ , she thinks with sadness. 

She turns to shake his hand, looking again into the bright blue eyes that have become familiar to her. He squeezes her hand, though his eyes are full of fear. She tries to wipe any emotion from her face - she knows the other tributes will be watching this, and she will not show weakness - but inside she is crumbling. 

How do you kill someone who saved your life?


	2. At The Capitol

She's been keeping tabs on him, she realizes, after telling Haymitch about Peeta's strength. _It's just because he's the boy with the bread __, she tells herself._

She hates that they are a pair. That they have to train together and act like friends. It would be so much easier to just avoid him. She hates feeling indebted to him, not when she promised Prim she'd try her best to get home. Not when getting back home depends on killing him. She can't do it. It's him.

She is relieved when he asks to train for the interviews separately.

He tells the entire nation that he loves her. She pushes him and he cuts his hands. _Just like his hateful mother_ , she thinks, furious at herself and him as she storms to back to her room. Will he ever get anything but pain out of helping her?

In the arena, she puts him far from her mind. Blood and death and thirst and burns are all she knows. When she wakes from the hallucinations brought on by the tracker jackers, she realizes he saved her from Cato. It was him. 

She finds him wounded - dying, really, but she won't admit it - and their bond grows as she cares for him. She doesn't want to lose her boy with the bread. 

He is grateful, so very grateful, that the last hours of his life get to be with her. 

They spend hours in the cave spent holding, kissing, and befriending. She tries to put Gale far from her mind. Peeta can't think of anything but Katniss. 

They make it out alive, together against all the odds. He lost his leg. Will he ever get anything but pain, from caring for her?

They are in so much trouble.


	3. District 12, Redux

He's never felt further from her. Not even since before the Games, when she barely knew he existed. She chose Gale and chooses Gale and it was never him. He feels like a fool. 

And he still can't let her go. Not because they are expected to put on a show for the Capitol - at least for Katniss it's a show, for him it's painful truth - but because despite it all, he loves her.

He knows she is no longer a distant, perfect girl that he worships from far away. She hurt him. She is selfish. She is terrible at communication. And he loves her. 

He learns that love doesn't have to be reciprocated to exist. That he will always put his beloved's needs ahead of his own. 

Even when he tries to just be her friend, and he wants so much more. 

Even when she says they should get engaged, knowing she is only doing it to protect the people she loves. It isn't him. 

Even when she asks him to stay. 

Even when Gale is whipped and Peeta is forced to watch her choose him, again. 

Even when the Quell announcement means he will most likely die. He laughs as he watches the President announce the reaping rules. He only cheated death for a little while. He knows he can't get away this time. 

He doesn't even think of it as a decision - Katniss has to live. She is actually needed in this District.


	4. The Quell

She can't believe she has to go through this again. Watching the boy with the bread join her as a tribute. Except this time, he volunteers. Of course he does, she thinks, because it's him. 

She puts all her hope into Peeta making it out alive. Maybe, just maybe, that will repay the countless debts she owes him. She'll never stop owing him. 

They are no longer the innocent star-crossed lovers from District 12. They are more - a team, powerful and unyielding. So dangerous, because their priority isn't their own individual survival - it's that the other makes it out alive. 

She has never had anyone put her well-being first. Not her mother, who disappeared into herself after her father died. Not any of her neighbors, trying their best to survive themselves. Not even Gale, who has a whole family to feed. 

Only Peeta. 

She doesn't realize it until his heart stops in the arena. Until their watch on the beach, when she knows she needs him and wants him and doesn't want to die without him knowing it. She isn't used to letting herself want anything. Anyone. 

And then everything falls apart. She fails him, owes him again, when he is captured by the Capitol and she is whisked off to District 13. 

Will he ever get anything besides hurt, for loving her?


	5. The Capitol, Redux

He is so thankful she got out. He is so pissed Haymitch left him. 

He is so broken, and so alone. Except for the screams of Johanna and Annie. 

At first he plays along with Snow. With Caesar. They're at it again, old friends bantering while the nation watches. He only thinks of Katniss. What he has to say to keep her safe. 

No matter the distance, she comes first. Because he's him. 

And when things get worse, the thought of kisses on the beach and nights holding her and being needed, really, truly needed for the first time sustain him. He loves her. 

But the Capitol turns and twists and poisons him, and his love, until it is broken. He is broken. They finally changed who he was, until he is no longer filled with love and goodness. 

Only venom. For her.


	6. District 13

She is broken. Everyone she was fighting for is safe - Prim, Gale, their families - but not him. 

She watches as he tries to protect her from afar, and realizes they never left the arena. They're still trying to protect each other. 

Why else would she become the Mockingjay, letting herself be used by another President who is hungry for control? Only with the guarantee of Peeta's eventual safety. It isn't enough, but she's never done enough to protect him. She will always owe him. 

Why else would she go to the burned, destroyed District that was her home? She can't stand the guilt and pain as she walks among the ashes. To District 8, to a hospital filled with people she can't protect or save? 

When she kisses Gale, she tries to keep Peeta far from her mind. But Gale isn't him. She wonders if she'll ever feel that hunger again. 

Then she watches Peeta do it, again. Save her at his own expense. Warn of the incoming planes. Did it finally cost him his life, this time? Loving her?

And for some hours, the Capitol has won. Because she is broken, utterly broken, and they did this to her. They took him and she can't get him back. Maybe she never will. 

And then, like a miracle, he's back. He's injured, but alive. She is determined to show him that she cares for him, needs him, wants him. They wasted too much time before. 

But it isn't him. They took Peeta and his love and his goodness. He would have never hurt her. It isn't him. 

And it is no longer hope that drives her on, but anger. They changed him and hurt him and in her anger, she changes too. She seeks death, relentlessly. Revenge. Snow.


	7. The War

She tries to put Peeta, and what will never be, far from her mind. This is what love gets you, she tells herself. Just pain. She shakes her head to get rid of the thought. She isn't sure she is capable of love, now. If she ever was. 

She is with Gale when Peeta appears in the Capitol. She doesn't want him there. He isn't protecting her anymore. She doesn't know how to protect him. 

She can't help trying to remind him of who he was, full of goodness. A baker, a painter. Not a killer. He loved her. She's certain of that. 

She can't do this. 

But she can't let him go. Not even after he tries to end her, killing Mitchell instead. It wasn't him. She hates Snow even more, if it's possible, for turning her beautiful boy with the bread into something that hurts. 

And when he almost loses himself again, in the tunnels, she kisses him back to her. Always. They will always protect each other. She feels hope in the midst of all this death. 

The war ends in the worst kind of evil and suffering, just as it began. The sacrifice of children. The sacrifice of Prim. 

The girl on fire is rescued by the boy with the bread. They both burn. 

Will he ever get anything besides hurt, for loving her?


	8. The End Of Things

She doesn't understand why she is alive. Prim is dead. She can't get too close to this thought, this terrible reality, without falling apart. She wanders the mansion aimlessly. She hides in closets. 

Gale never visits. Peeta is still in the hospital, recovering. Her mother is no solace. Haymitch is drunk. 

Prim is dead. She feels so alone. 

Of all the people in all of Panem, Snow is the one who makes things clear to her. Snow. Who ruined everything good and true in her life - except Prim. The responsibility for Prim's death belongs to others. 

There is a spark of something inside when the remaining Victors are gathered by President Coin. They vote on holding a final Hunger Games. Peeta sounds like himself again - good, truly good, and so skilled with his words - as he argues against them. She has the tiniest spark of hope. But it is drowned out, by anger and grief and the need for revenge.

When she shoots the arrow at the other President, Peeta is there. He won't let her take the Nightlock. She wounds his hand. He can't let her go. It's him. She's sure he will never get anything but pain, from loving her. 

She screams for Gale. This was supposed to be the end, Gale would understand that. But Gale isn't there. It's just him. And he's the one who protects her, even from herself.


	9. Another Beginning

She is lost to the world when she hears the scraping outside. She isn't sure what day it is or how long she has been back in District 12. She doesn't know why she cares enough to see what is going on. If it's someone who means harm, death would be a welcome friend at this point.

She stops short when she realizes. It's him. 

When he tells her about the primroses, more emotions than she's had in months flood her. But most of all hope. Because it's him, with a gesture that is undoubtedly Peeta. He's back.

It's still him. 

They grow back together, painfully and slowly. It takes so much time to unwind the ways the Capitol twisted their fledgling relationship and their lives. Some of it will never go away. She has days of despondence and darkness. She knows she will never be worthy of him. He leaves her cheese buns and reminds her that she is worth everything. 

Sometimes he thinks he is her default, her second choice, her safety since Gale left. Not real, so completely not real, she says. She needs Peeta. She wants him. She has never wanted anyone as much as she wants him. 

She shows him. She always was better with actions than with words, anyway. 

And after, she realizes. It was him. It is him. It will always be him. 

When he questions her love, she can finally tell him. Real.


	10. Epilogue

Age 42

She watches their children play in the meadow. Children. They are her living proof that he does get something besides pain, for loving her.

That isn't why she finally decided to try. He had been ready for so much longer than her - but she's used to that, Peeta being a few steps ahead of her. She thinks she's caught up to him by now.

No, she decided to have children because the world needed more of Peeta in it. His goodness, his love, that persisted despite everything the Capitol did to try to take it away. That loved her better than she loved herself. 

She was terrified when she first learned she was pregnant. His elation was tempered by his worry for her. Her nightmares and depression returned with a vengeance and didn't let up until she held their daughter in her arms for the first time. She had a new reason to hope, to protect, to endure. 

She always knew he'd be a loving father. She didn't expect how many new sides of him she'd discover. Play, imagination, tenderness that all showed themselves for their daughter. And then their son. 

They have so much more than they ever expected from life. Everyday she wakes up, and it's next to him.


End file.
